Mozart Symphony No.40 in G minor

It’s around 4 in the evening, the oily, sweaty faced school kids are returning home. The evening sun is slanting its slightly less vicious rays as if it’s had a change of heart. Besides the school kids and girls from college, the street is busy with milk men, their Vespas overloaded with aluminium drums of milk, the nor-so-out of place cattle being shepherded home and the odd office worker. Looks like water has been relased, as you see neighbours with their plastic vessels waiting at the pump. There is that pretty girl again, on her way back from college. You see her in the morning sometimes. You and your friends saw her carrying a violin case the other day, and someone ferreted out this tape that had Mozart’s symphonies. You liked this piece even though you had no clue about movements and other technical details about classical music. The tape is in the deck, you are standing out at the gate looking out to see if the girl is close by so you can relay the information and the guy inside can play it loud. No one is sure what is supposed to happen. Was there a faint hope that she would come rushing into a stranger’s house with five strange guys and offer her love for everyone just because the residents seem to display decent taste in music evidenced by a classical piece emanating from the house?As she passes by, you think you detected, what was that, a smile? Could it be? Well, that kind of makes your evening, a ghost of a smile on your favourite girl's face, a girl whose name you didn't know, whom you would never talk to. But still, it feels good.

Sledgehammer

They said there will be a show late night (which meant around 10) on TV about some music awards. A friend of yours says his neighbour has a TV and it’s ok to go there and watch it. You feel a bit awkward going to the house of someone you don’t know, and watching something you are not sure of. But a few other friends gather, and since it’s a weekend coming up, you decide to go. It’s not like you have to go alone. So after dinner, the guys come to your place and you go to your friend’s house, and he takes you to his neighbour, who welcomes you at this rather odd hour. The house has a distinct smell. They have sofas and a recessed wall cupboard with some figurines and kids’ things. A plaque is there in the centre. Somebody must have won something. Some photographs of the family. It says Dyanora on the TV set which is in a wooden box housing with shutters. The whole thing is standing on four wooden legs splayed out like under a dining table. You all settle as comfortable as you can in a stranger’s house at 10 pm, and the programme comes on. There are videos of many songs you’ve never heard of, you don’t hear much except for what comes on the radio, and that too only for a short while.This one was memorable, it had interesting things happen to the singer/actor.

Innum ennai

"You wake up from an afternoon slumber into a transcendental twilight in your home town. The orange skies accompany your melancholy as you drift out of the house after the coffee and as you make your way up to the bus stand potti kadai and buy a Gold Flake, the smoothness of which is indescribable and the smell of it, as yet unlit, is dragging you ever deeper into the town's flirtatious and squalid yet undeniably attractive depths, and as if you're not ensnared and enslaved enough already, there is that rough hemp rope to light that cigarette with, imparting to it a certain smokiness no oak cask of no 18 year old single malt could ever boast of. You walk on then, at once heady and humbly low, under the canopy of Gulmohar that lines the Colony streets, and onwards toward that deserted temple where the presiding deity communicates easier with you than the priest on call. The sun sets on the city that obligingly played Lolita that evening to your old man avatar. Hope stays afloat. Of course." (This post is from Kanna)

Naan unnai serdnha selvam

You wake up from your afternoon slumber, and notice it’s gotten darker earlier than usual. Or did you sleep too late into the evening? You wonder as you groggily walk to the kitchen, and notice that lights have come on already and it feels like it’s Deepavali. But there’s no sound of crackers, no acrid smell of sulphur. You notice that your tea is in the tumbler and you realise that the evening has come a little early to today, like a husband who comes back from work earlier than usual, walks into a closed room unintentionally and catches the wife changing into a new dress, making her blush. Now you remember it was the soft rain during the day that lulled you into a soporific state after returning from college. The tea you sip soothes its way down, leaving a trail of clarity like barium caught on x-ray. Ahhh, you say, breathing in the cool evening air. Someone is filling the drums with water. It’s too cold to even think of washing your face. The radio plays this song, fittingly.

Vaa ponmayile

It rained the whole night, at least when the thunder and the flash of lightning bouncing off the wall and, somehow, into your sleep. You did go back to sleep after a bit of tossing and turning, listening to the steady fall of the rain outside. By the time you are up and ready for school, the rain has stopped but the bright morning with the clouds holding the sun ransom, still has traces of the rain. Grey clouds on the puddles on the street. Rain drops still dripping from the tea shop awning. The autos bulging with school kids has the flap that lifts up in the breeze. You see flashes of smiling faces inside as it speeds by, splashing the cloud puddle. Suddenly, you feel the taste of the hot rice and rasam that felt good on this cold morning, from the aroma that still on your fingers. Your friend joins you and you begin walking to your school. As you turn the corner, waiting fro the traffic light, this song comes on, fitting perfectly with the beautiful morning.